Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) told the Financial Times that he was ready to send experts, for a new mission, to China to investigate the origins of COVID-19.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the FT that we’re pressing China to provide full access, and we are requesting nations to raise it during their bilateral discussions — (to insist China) to co-operate.
WHO had already written to Beijing requesting “to provide us information ” and for the organization to send a team “if they allow us to do so”, he added.
The global community has been incapable of deciding with assurance the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first cases were seen at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, presenting two different theories: an escape from a laboratory in the city where such viruses were being detected or an intermediate animal that infected individuals at a local market.
A team of experts led by the WHO and accompanied by Chinese colleagues studied China in early 2021.
In a mutual report, they preferred the theory that the virus had been transmitted by intermediary animals from a bat to a human, perhaps at a market.
Tedros said after that all possibilities remained “on the table”.
There has not been a team capable of returning to China and WHO officials have repeatedly asked for additional data.
Tedros has often said the WHO would not quit its investigation and has called on China for clarity in providing data, taking out investigations, and sharing the results.
The WHO raised the highest alert level that had been in place for the pandemic earlier this year.
Thanks to vaccines, post-infection immunity, and better cure, the virus is now under significant control, although with the coming of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, new variants are occurring.
